Passage is an augmented reality (AR) artwork installation based on a slave ship docked at the Port of New Orleans. It is intended to educate the public about the Middle Passage and the treatment of enslaved African captives. The experience is meant to provide representation of the captives. The main sculptural object is a ship based on some of the first ships to arrive in Louisiana with Africans. A slave ship filled with sculptures that represent 200 enslaved people. This is a work in progress that will be exhibited in a larger series called Slavery Trails, a decentralized memorial to slavery in the United States.
Slavery Trails: a decentralized memorial to slavery.
Slavery Trails are site-specific augmented reality (AR) sculpture exhibits created to give representation to the enslaved people who we try to forget. I want to physically and virtually mark areas where enslaved people were held, sold, and worked in the United States. The concept of the Passage exhibit is where it all started for me, where real human beings were stacked in a vessel in conditions that were inhumane. We try to ignore how this city and country were really built by not erecting memorials to the enslaved either in New Orleans or nationally. But it is time to give these people who came here by force the human dignity they deserve by at least acknowledging that they were here.
– Marcus Brown 2023
